Policing hate and bridging communities: a qualitative evaluation of relations between LGBT+ people and the police within the North East of England PICKLES, James <http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6605-0631> Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/24094/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version PICKLES, James (2019). Policing hate and bridging communities: a qualitative evaluation of relations between LGBT+ people and the police within the North East of England. Policing and society. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Abstract The history of policing minority populations has been fraught with persecution and prejudice, which has led to an ingrained mistrust of police forces amongst lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) people. This study uses interview and survey data from LGBT+ participants in the North East of England, to examine perceptions of the police and explore LGBT+ interactions with police officers. Additionally, it draws on interviews taken with criminal justice workers, including LGB&T liaison officers, to scrutinise the effectiveness of efforts made by the police to build trusting relationships. Liaison strategies have been effective in building relationships with LGBT+ community workers. LGBT+ people generally have little to no awareness of the LGB&T liaison role, minimising the roles overall effectiveness and demonstrating a lack of engagement to the wider community. Introduction Relationships between the police and minority groups have historically been fractured and hostile (Chakraborti and Garland, 2009, 2015; Macpherson, 1999; Manning, 2010). Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews and two surveys - face-to-face (n=100) and online (n=142) - this paper examines the relationship between the police and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) communities in the North East of England. LGBT+ will be the acronym adopted throughout this paper, unless LGB&T liaison officers - the title of these roles - are being discussed. The history of policing in relation to LGBT+ people will be examined in order to explore the transition from prejudicial policing - the practice of the police persecuting LGBT+ people - to the policing of prejudice and hate. The literature on hate crime, including an appraisal of legislation underpinning the policing of hate, will then be provided. The approach taken in this article is influenced by queer criminology, an emerging branch of criminology that seeks to examine queer experiences of crime and criminal justice, by prioritising the standpoints and narratives of queer people. There is little data on efforts to repair the relationship between the police and LGBT+ people, with few studies examining the nature of these fractures. This paper argues that police LGB&T liaison officers work consistently with LGBT+ voluntary sector organisations, in an attempt to remedy previous hostilities. It concludes that due to a lack of communication being transmitted to the wider LGBT+ community, the effectiveness of these attempts is minimised. Policing LGBT+ Communities Owing to the fragmented past of LGBT+ history, it is difficult to determine when the policing of sexuality began in England and Wales. The term 'policing' can be used to refer to social, cultural, and societal regulations. Policing is used in this article when referring to formal forms of policing, enacted by the criminal justice matrix of England and Wales. The Buggery Act (1553) was the first legislative attempt to regulate same-sex activity. The sovereign criminalised 'unnatural' sex acts outlined in ecclesiastical frameworks - anal sex and bestiality - tying biblical prohibitions of sexuality to legal charters (Asal, Sommer, and Harwood, 2012). Without a formal police force (see Jones and Stockdale, 2017) to fully regulate and 1 | P a g e enforce this law - the first force being established in 1829 - it is disputed that same-sex acts were policed formally in this era, with evidence suggesting same-sex activity was regulated locally through social opprobrium (see Moran, 2012). Influenced by a shift in philosophical paradigms, moving from Enlightenment to logical positivism, the emerging scientific method in early 20th century society 'blended' legislative regulations of male same-sex activity with scientific organisations seeking to cure same-sex attraction; homosexuality was thus medicalised. Hart and Wellings (2002) argue that the authority of the medical sector determined how same-sex activity and gender non-conformity was regulated. Chemical castration (Bremer, 1959), electric shock therapy (Owensby, 1941), and aversion and apomorphine therapy (Callahan and Cameron, 1973) - a type of therapy that caused vomiting when aroused - were commonly used on those who expressed same-sex desire. Smith, Bartlett, and King (2004) reason that homosexual 'offenders', 'perverts', and 'deviants' were often coerced into undergoing these treatments in order to avoid imprisonment. The most infamous of these incidents is the case of Alan Turing, who was prosecuted on grounds of 'gross indecency'. He was given the option between imprisonment and probation, with the latter carrying conditions to undergo medical treatment. 'Alan Turing's homosexuality was interpreted by the legal system as a crime, by the medical profession as a malfunction, and by the government as a liability’ (Halberstam, 1991: 444). Thus, there was a blending of medical and criminal justice responses to same-sex desire. It is important to note the androcentric application of such legislative and scientific scrutiny. Whilst women were subject to social restrictions, they were not (as) subject to the harms of the medical and legislative sectors as what men were. Such repression did not go without resistance. Gay spaces - bars, pubs, and restaurants - existing within the night-time economy have long been associated with counter-cultural resistance to anti-LGBT+ persecution. In particular, districts in Berlin such as Nollendorfplatz, London's Soho area, and areas surrounding the Stonewall Inn in New York were the most prolific and populous sites of queer culture and resistance, beginning in the 1930's (Andersson, 2011). Bathhouses, saunas, and public toilets, colloquially known as tearooms, were also prominent spaces where same-sex - usually male - activity was engaged in (Bérubé, 2003). These spaces were habitually raided, respectively, by police forces driven on a moral crusade to curb homosexuality. Many officers committed violence against LGBT+ people, with blackmail, coercion, and threats to out 'offenders' being commonplace (Bérubé, 2003; Humphreys, 1970). The customary raids eventually prompted the much mythologised 'Stonewall Riots' where a raid on the now iconic bar, the Stonewall Inn, resulted in queer people of colour fighting the raiding police officers. This marked a form of resistance against the sustained violence perpetrated by the police (Armstrong and Crage, 2006), prompting the Gay Liberation and later Pride movement. A string of high profile homosexual convictions in Britain - inter alia Alan Turing, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and Michael Pitt-Rivers - prompted the then Conservative government to establish the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, overseen by Sir John Wolfenden. The publication of the Wolfenden Report (1957) recommended that homosexuality be legalised between consenting (male) adults above the age of 21. 2 | P a g e Wolfenden's recommendations were enacted ten years later, in 1967, and 'sodomy' was legalised for men over the age of 21. British movements such as the Gay Liberation Front mirrored this legislative change with radical activism by campaigning for political, social, and legal change; fighting for the end of persecutory policing and for equalising the legal age of consent for same-sex adult (Gay Liberation Front, 1971). Little attention has been paid to policing relations with LGBT+ people between 1970 and 1990, as the focus of attention was fixed, justifiably, upon race relations. Considerable evidence 'had mounted of black men (especially black youths) being disproportionately involved in arrests for certain offences, partly (though not only) because of police discrimination' (Reiner, 2010: 94). Indeed, prejudical policing was regularly practiced in Britian throughout the 1970's and 1980's, the most significant of which can be seen in the 1981 disorders in Brixton and the subsequent Scarman Inquiry (Rowe, 2014). Whilst the literature focuses on race in relation to prejudical policing, there is no doubt that the climate of persecuting minority groups continued the oppression of LGBT+ people. 1993 saw the murder of Stephen Lawrence; a black man killed in a racially motivated attack. The mishandling of his case by the Metropolitan police prompted an inquiry into his death and the subsequent publication of the Macpherson (1999) report. Macpherson concluded that the Metropolitan police, and the wider criminal justice system, were institutionally racist and prejudiced. 70 recommendations were highlighted in the report, many of which were aimed towards repairing the harms caused to groups that the police had mistreated and persecuted. Although this report focused specifically on race and racism, Jones (2015) and Jones and Williams (2013) argue that